Removed feralhive; they all died within 24 hours

[omnimirage]

I agreed to move remove a feral beehive that was in a bush, established for a couple months. First time I showed up, someone has squirted the bees with a hose for an hour and one side of the hive was rather wet. Showed up a couple days later, I dismantled the comb, discarded the bits without brood on it and strapped down the bits with brood on frames with rubberbands. The job took longer than I figured, it was a few hours past sunset and thousands of bees was still outside the hive. I tried to encourage them to enter the hive, by putting a lot of lemon grass oil in there, maybe 50 drops, I've learned since that this was a mistake.

So I left, and came back the following day. I made another mistake because I didn't provide shade from the sun, it's summer here in Australia and the hive probably got quite hot. When I showed up the following evening, there was less than a thousand bees in the hive, the large majority of them swarmed to a tree just 10-15 meters away. I parked my car underneath, put a cabinet on top, placed the hive on top of the cabinet and scooped, and shacked the bees into the hive. I then drove them to the new site and dropped them off.

I returned eight days later. The owner of the property told me that he went out the back about 20 hours after I dropped off the bees, and there were many thousands of dead bees outside the hives. The two hives sharing the stand didn't seem to have lost any bees, so it seems they were mostly all from the swarm that I captured.

The hive had some sugar ants, moths, wasps, wax moth and a small, green/brown beetle with a little black dot roaming about inside, about the size of a small hive beetle(tried to take a photo of it but it hid with some comb and I didn't see it again). There was a number of baby bees that tried to hatch from brood comb, failed and died. There was maybe a few hundred bees left. I saw some eggs in one section of comb, but I didn't see a queen.

Here's some photos:

https://imgur.com/a/Fywu7

I basically took a photo of every part of the hive, some frames got photos at different angles.

I wasn't sure what to do. I thought about leaving them there, but figured the chances of them surviving was less than 1%. I thought about merging them with another hive, but considering how many actual bees were here, and I figured there was a possibility that they had some disease or pest, I didn't think it was worth it, so I just brought them back home with me.

What potential reasons are there for the bees dying? What could have caused the brood to be unable to hatch? What would have you guys done differently? Could have that little green/brown bug be some sort of pest that contributed to their decline, or was it likely just a common bug? Was the eggs that were laid, likely from before the hive was moved?

[Acebird]

All bugs come to feast on an unprotected hive.
Reasons for dying:
Sprayed water, poison, queen got killed, difficult hive to dissect, absconding.
Next time remove the foundation when rubber banding in the comb pieces.  Keep brood together and honey to the outside.

[omnimirage]

They didn't seem to be dying from the sprayed water, I removed the five days after such. Surely the queen dying wouldn't have caused the thousands of workers to also die? Some may have absconded but such still doesn't explain the thousands of bee deaths.

Removing the foundation is a good solution to their comb being double sided with brood.

[eltalia]

@omnimirage

You would have dead hatchlings still?
Would you please measure whole body length and thorax diameter for a few random
select and post the findings. If no bodies then depth of a brood cell may help.

Thanks.

Bill

[Acebird]

They didn't seem to be dying from the sprayed water,

Why would they be sprayed with water?  Someone intended to kill the hive.  Poison could have been tried, soap, anything.  The water would dilute a poison but not eliminate it all together.  Water will mix with honey in the comb and initiate fermentation.  If you get a call to remove bees you have hours not days to assess the situation before people take things into their own hands and that is assuming they haven't already done so.
It is nearly impossible to determine what killed these bees when they were not under your care.
It is a big risk to bring a hive like this into your own apiary.  Cut outs are far from free bees unless they came from your own property.  And even then they are a lot of work.

[omnimirage]

I should have mentioned that the bees were hosed by a man not knowing that I was visiting, and that I came up to do the removal job about five days after such. I doubt they were poisoned, it was suggested that they pour petrol on them and burn them, but the owner didn't want to do that as she deemed bees important for the environment, and I saw no signs that the hive was troubled when doing a cutout, but I suppose it's a possibility that things other than water was used to try and kill them.

Yeah I didn't exactly want to do this job, basically owed a friend some favours and he asked me so I did what I could. What kind of risks are involved in bringing cut out bees to a site with other bees that I have?

I wasn't sure what to measure, so I just took some photos of me measuring some bees:

https://imgur.com/a/NmVXz

I note that there was an oddly dark coloured bee in the hive. I've never seen a bee so dark coloured before. There was some bees that were hatching in the hive when I arrived at the site yesterday, they were struggling to get out and were unattended. Do they usually need nurse bees to help them? I found it interesting that the fresh baby hatchlings were a lighter colour. Is this normal? Do bees darken as they mature?

[Acebird]

I am not sure but I think I am seeing some DWV although I didn't see the mite frass I would expect to see that goes with it.  The other thing I didn't mention is I don't see a lot of honey.  Did you feed these bees?
Risks are brood disease and mites when you bring in a cut out.  Minor risk could be SHB if they are in your area.

[omnimirage]

IS DWV a Varroa Mite thing? Because we don't get that there. I may have made a mistake with that, I disposed of all the honey, last time I tried to strap honey comb to frames doing a cut out job and it just caused the bees to drown. So I didn't provide honey this time around.

SHB is not, as far as to my knowledge, in that part of my area, but it's in my state and could show up more West with time, so that's something I'll have to keep in mind. Just got an amateur question here; could bee swarms, not established wild hives, also bring with them SHB? What if they've been there for maybe 5 days and have built some comb?

[eltalia]

@omnimirage

"I wasn't sure what to measure, so I just took some photos of me measuring some bees:"

I just 'bout fell off me chair on reading the quoted text above.
Lost and wholly astounded as to where my request held any challenge
in understanding. However you were saved 'hearing' my conclusion.
My read of the images saved you that one sentence I had, poised to
put to post.
It is somewhat surprising to find a relatively young Australian using the
imperial tape measure... my son does, but only because I taught him to.
Soooo.. you are indeed different. So am I, so it is all good.

These are truly feral, descendants of apis.m.L. - the English Black Bee.
Now you know what ferals look like you will have little trouble sorting
your other BeeMasters.com thread out. Take note of the depth of dark
in body colour for the newly emerged bees and the prolific sprinkling
of darker coloured bees before the flight/foraging stage. Guard bees
may well own some quite distinct orange banding, completely hairless
and shiny in overall appearance. Drones will be pretty much black and
dull. If you see a queen she will be very dark, often near on blue-black
in the abdomen, closely resembling the skin colour of a Nigerian or
Maasi person. I presume you have walked Adelaide mall.

My take on the original post?
You killed this colony. Sure there are contributing factors which did not
help them to survive best under very trying conditions but in the main
it was your interaction behind their demise. Something I find a little
puzzling given your statements around having bees for years. In a nutshell
it all reads as your efforts focus on bees fitting your picture, not you helping
 them with theirs. You have some way to go in understanding the communal
 bee "culture" my friend.

Just some directions around what could be done next time, and by no
means a "checklist" in guiding success with redirecting a colony. Each case
has to be thought through individually. Your efforts could improve the success
rate were the focus of planning be what's best for them and not what suits you
or what you can do, convenienently.
1. for any comb retrieval anywhere the bees go in the box, confined. This before
anything else happens. End of story.
In this instance my approach would have been to rope the bush then cut
the support branches to lower the whole shebang into a suitable sealable box.
Requires resources and skills with battery saws, geared loppers, pully blocks... etc.
For you?
Large white sheet - painter's dropsheet is ideal -  and a rope of 6mm diameter.
A very sharp heavy blade - machette is good to go.
Sling rope over branches below the colony tying the other end to your front
bumper. Reverse up until the tension significantly bends the branch/s.
Spread out the sheet under the colony where it now hangs.
On a single blow cut the rope. Without delay fold the sheet to then shake
bees out into a screened bottom board super with a couple of frames of honey
stores. Lock that box down.
The colony resources can now be cut down/out to be placed wholly into
a suitably sized box, any type will do as long as it is sealable with ventilation
allowed for. Do not attempt to break up the comb at this stage beyond what is
necessary to fit, let the branches support the comb as the bees had built it.
The boxes can now be moved offsite for work to be done elsewhere, but if
allowable the box of comb could be placed on top of the super with a queen
restrictor in place at the entrance. Leave them bee at least 48 hrs.

2. forget using Ideal size -  or "mediums" as our cousins know them - for comb
cutouts. If you must use frames - and that rubberband method -  then fulldepth
frames only, and keep the combs abutting, none to little spaces.
I use a bespoke frame of 2" sheeplink fencing made as a folder. Drop the comb
in, close the fold and suspend in the super as would any other frame.

3. when setting comb to the frames follow the pattern bees have installed
or usually install, brood to centre, honey/pollen to extents. Do not place any
broken honey comb over brood comb.

4. within 7days set your retrived comb above a preformed conventional
super complete with alternate foundation and drawn comb. After a further
four days shake down all bees into the new broodchamber and restore box with
a QX in place. Where the queen has been found and euthanased the QX can be
left aside, not required.

Other factors not helping at all.... this colony was set to split, or move on, when
Man starved it to death and exposed it to robbing. No way advocating sustaining
feral colonies it is a crying shame such a resource as this was blown away on the
crosswind of fear and inexperience fuelled by ignorance of how bees work.

Here is hoping that changes for you.

Bill

[Acebird]

Sling rope over branches below the colony tying the other end to your front
bumper. Reverse up until the tension significantly bends the branch/s.
Spread out the sheet under the colony where it now hangs.
On a single blow cut the rope.

I suspect this would have macerated the queen.
Let's concentrate on what he did right or tried to do rather then belittle his efforts.  I don't think he was going for a master beekeeper certificate.

[eltalia]

Sling rope over branches below the colony tying the other end to your front
bumper. Reverse up until the tension significantly bends the branch/s.
Spread out the sheet under the colony where it now hangs.
On a single blow cut the rope.

I suspect this would have macerated the queen.
Let's concentrate on what he did right or tried to do rather then belittle his efforts.  I don't think he was going for a master beekeeper certificate.

Nobody need write a t'ousand words to belittle - person or body of
work - many manage that in just 35, some can do so in just one.
Me...?.. I prefer to ignore suspect histrionics, particularly when
issuing from the mind(s) of serial bee killers.

Bill

- [addn]
Not only are you way offbase in your "I suspect", but you have totally
missed the point around Aussie feral colonies addressed in that
Bee Genetics thread - the fella does not want the queen of this colony to
continue. End of.

[Kathyp]

I prefer to ignore suspect histrionics, particularly when
issuing from the mind(s) of serial bee killers.

Some of your points were good, but they are lost in the fact that you are an butthole.  and butthole is not the word I chose, but there is a filter on here.

[Skeggley]

I then drove them to the new site and dropped them off.

How did you close up the entrance and how long was the drive to the new location?

[eltalia]

@Acebird

There ya go Brian..!..another lesson in wurdsmiffin'..!
Duntolya some can do it in one word, and from a goil
no less... an' slip filters..!..bravo, not.

One can only hope Om has his ears on ;-)

Bill

[omnimirage]

I've done some research on bee species since you provided a specie name on the bee. When you said it's a apis.m.L., did you mean Apis mellifera mellifera, also known as dark european bee or german black bee? I suspect the black bee in the photo was just darkened by moisture. Are you sure they're not Apis mellifera ligustica? A source I stumbled across suggested that feral bees in Australia are more inclined to be Apis mellifera mellifera whereas apiarist bees are more inclined to be Apis mellifera ligustica.

1. So when you say go into a box, do you mean just the bees brushed off, or the whole comb structure? Someone elsewhere suggested to drop the whole hive into a large cardboard box and to transfer that to the new apiary site, and give them a few days to adjust to the new environment before working on them.

Why a screened bottom board?

When you say a couple frames of honey, should I bring them from another site, or can I rubberband strap down bits of honeycomb that I find in the cutout?

Why not use Ideal hives for such? Based upon my bad back, I decided when building my last batch of supers to not build any deeps and just to build all ideals, wanting to have uniform frames. This meant that brood chambers would be ideal sized. I'm not sure if I made a mistake with this. I still have some deep sized nucs but very limited about of deeps that I can use for full sized brood chambers.

4. Using bee excluders there sounds like an effective idea!


Thanks Acebird I appreciate the support.


Skeggley, I didn't even cover the entrance and there was numerous bees on the side of the super whilst I was transporting. The drive to the new location took about 25 minutes.

[Acebird]

You are welcome.